caulfield12

I would even rather have Nix in CF (after watching him handle RF tonight for the first time) than Pods. At least Nix has instincts and a pretty good arm.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 4, 2009 -> 09:01 PM) Where do you get this information on where the minor league guys hit the ball? From listening to most of the Barons games this season...all four of those guys have sprayed the ball all over the field. I would say there might even be some concern that Viciedo is hitting 75% of his balls to RF and RCF. Flowers' greatest power is to CF, although he can hit the ball well out of the stadium in any direction...he's had quite a few doubles to both CF gaps. Beckham usually homers to LF, but he's a tremendous hitter to the opposite field and up the middle when down in the count. And Gordon has simply been a doubles machine so far this season.

Beckham (2B), Ramirez (SS) and Shelby/Danks >> Beckham (SS), Getz (2B), Ramirez in CF Ramirez is better than Beckham at SS, Beckham is/can be equal or better than Getz at 2B and both of our young outfielders will be much better defensively than Alexei in CF.

QUOTE (scenario @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:52 PM) ^^^^^^ Funny how we didn't hear much about Walk when we were 6th in MLB in runs scored last year. Since you follow the minor leagues as much as anyone here, do you "trust" Greg Walker to be the best possible hitting coach for the Birmingham Five??? Obviously we're not going to pry Rudy Jaramillo from Texas and I'm not even sure Walt Hrniak is alive, but aren't there any better options out there? We've had this same approach for a decade, and maybe it will never change unless they move the fences back at USCF. Maybe it doesn't even matter what our offense does, it's completely dependent upon Cooper and the pitching staff on a year to year basis, whether we're a good/decent or REALLY good team each year.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:46 PM) I think everyone goes overboard on Walker for the offense year after year. Your earlier point about Liilibridge is that he doesn't pull the ball. Jim Thome hits many homers the to the opposite field. Maybe it's just the fact that to win at comiskey you need to hit homeruns, so KW has put together a homerun hitting team. Since most hitters hit more homeruns if they pull the ball, this is what the hitters do. They see the way the ball flies out of this park and start to hit that way. Very few coaches at the professional level will totally change the way a player plays. They will tweak it and adjust it, but not totally change it. If the hitter has a good hitting style to hit the opposite way they will. Iguchi was a good example, I don't recall Walker wrecking him. When a team is missing a third of their starters (Fields, Anderson and Dye) one of whom is the clenup hitter, the team will struggle to score runs. JMHO It's FAR from clear that Fields and Anderson have the ability to be big league regulars over a 5 year time horizon. But it's great you brought up two examples of players who haven't thrived or excelled under Walker and Guillen...because those two are exactly the kind of players (unless Josh is going back to the 30 HR style of hitting that's been lost to his new David Ortiz-ish opposite field approach) that need to do the little things well and support the core of the line-up. The problem is that you can't have a 3B with 10-15 homers and 60 RBI's who is ALSO below average defensively. Lillibridge, Pods, Owens and Miller are lost causes. I still have high hopes for Getz and Nix, although I see no possible way they all fit into a future picture with Ramirez and Beckham in the middle infield. Moving either Getz or Beckham to 3B makes them much less valuable, although we could probably live with Gordon at 3B. If Lillibridge only hits to 1/3rd of the field, the defensive alignments will start to kill him even more.

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:43 PM) Bailey's been dominant in AAA his last four starts. He went back to his old delivery. I don't want to start the debate again, but maybe Coop wouldn't have to do much "fixin". Well, obviously Jocketty would be insane to trade him...when it's far from clear the Reds can stay with the Cardinals and Cubs or the wild card all season long. They have to build around pitching and not one year "band aid" solutions, so I would be shocked if they traded for Dye now. Darn you, Hal McCoy!

QUOTE (fathom @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:41 PM) The more I think about it, the more I just want to be entertained by the White Sox this season. I had no championship aspirations for this roster, but at least be competitive in every game and put together good at bats, etc. Hopefully things get better soon, and the games are more enjoyable. That will relieve a lot of the tension on this site and Caulfield won't have to start another new thread every other day. I have three more weeks of vacation, then I have to go back to "real life" in Thailand and won't have 24 hours to devote to obsessing over the White Sox. I am going to the White Sox/Twins game on the 21st. I think that will be the first White Sox game I've been able to attend in Chicago for 7 years. Hopefully we won't have been mathematically eliminated by Kyle Davies, the Tigers, Rangers and Blue Jays (because we play SO SO well in TOR).

We're putting a TON of faith to think Don Cooper could magically transform Bailey and get him to respond. It worked with Thornton in one or two days, but that's because Thornton was completely lost and desperate for any wisdom and guidance. From everything we've read about Bailey, he seems like he is a lot more resistant to coaching. Definitely, Dye for a pitching prospect is the right move, because you have to replace Colon/Contreras for the immediate future...it's just that it's nearly impossible to get a team with a young but underachieving pitching prospect to throw in the towel on them. Expecting Cooper to get anything out of Van Benschoten or Marquez is really pushing it. I liked Clayton a lot tonight. I'm not sure if he was a legit 93-96 tonight, but his pitches were on the same gun as Zach Greinke, and Clayton was throwing a tick or two faster than I've ever seen from him. It's going to have to be Richard, Poreda and/or an acquisition/trade of Dye/Konerko or one/two of our relievers in order to really have a competitive team for next year.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 4, 2009 -> 08:04 PM) Ah, the old vote of confidence for Walker. It's like groundhog day. When you have to give a coach a vote of confidence every year, maybe it's time to go in a new direction: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/wh...-050409.article We had this discussion before. It will be a disaster if Walker tries to make Flowers, Beckham, Allen and Viciedo patented "lift and pull" hitters. They've all consistently shown their best power to the opposite field this season. Unfortunately, there's no "fire sale" to be had with this White Sox team, even if they wanted to. We don't have any outfield replacements for Dye, unless we plan on playing Dayan Viciedo in LF/RF next season. Shelby and Danks are at least 1 1/2 seasons away from the big leagues. So Dye's not really tradeable, because 1) we have no replacement in the minors and 2) his contract is pretty big. Still, he's probably our most valuable player to the opposition. Konerko, if he continues to play as well as he has, would definitely be an interesting acquisition to a team like the Angels, if Morales continues to struggle. There are probably 2-3 teams out there who would be interested, and that could change with a key injury on some of the big market teams. Thome, at $13 million, forget it. Dotel, Linebrink, Jenks and Thornton will all be sought after. 1) Thornton...would it be best to trade him now or make him the closer to replace Jenks? Or could Poreda be the closer? It depends on what the Sox and KW are thinking here. There's always been that question about his ability to close or even pitch with inherited runners. Of course, scouts are in love with his arm and repeatable/easy delivery. Big plus is his contract seems to be a bargain. 2) Jenks, although his contract is going up year after year, will be around $7.5-8.5 million next season. 3) Dotel...an expensive acquisition for all but the big market teams, but our most effective pitcher so far this year and looking healthy, knock on wood. 4) Linebrink...least likely target, two years more to go on his contract, questions about overuse and future reliability

We also now have the very WORST offense in the American League, at least until the A's game becomes official later tonight. I'll repeat, after 15% of the season, we are now ranked last in runs scored per game in the AL. Oakland is behind us in runs scored, because they have played 3 less games. White Sox=4.32 runs per game Oakland=4.36 runs per game Home Runs White Sox=26 Royals=26

Brent Lillibridge, .186 career MLB average, 555 OPS Andy Gonzalez, .188 career MLB average, 549 OPS

Not for losing to Greinke tonight, that was pretty much a given and was one of those bets you ALMOST make but you can't really bring yourself to bet against the White Sox, no matter what. 1) Nix had played in 9 minor and major league games before his appearance at 3B. He threw one ball into the ground that Konerko miraculously snagged or it would have been runners on 2nd and 3rd. He also muffed a double play ball and almost didn't get the out at 1B. 1B) Wilson Betemit is now officially superfluous. This team would be better off with Uribe as the back-up across the infield. If you can't trust him to play 3B against Greinke, then you might as well just release him or wait for Thome to go down again so he can be the starting DH. Playing against tough RHP was SUPPOSEDLY the area where he excelled, at least last year. 2) Lillibridge has no business near CF (see yesterday's boot) or in the White Sox line-up, PERIOD. He hasn't hit a ball to the left of second base all season long. He has taken feeble/anemic swings 3-4 times already this season, getting baserunners like Anderson and now Pods thrown out easily on botched hit-and-runs. He makes almost as little contact as Josh Fields, and it's borderline nauseating now to watch. If you're not going to play Pods in CF, you might as well stick Nix out there, since he's NEVER even played the outfield in a major league game...still, he managed to look better than both Pods and Lillibridge respectively. Imagine if we lost a one run game because of Lillibridge and Pods being out there. 3) Pods playing AT ALL in RF is a permanent stain on all ML RFers. He can't judge flyballs (he never took good routes), he has to have the worst arm in the history of those who have ever played RF for even a single game (as a starter) and he's no longer a threat on the basepaths. The only thing he does (now) is work the count a little bit and get a few walks. It would really be better if KW just was honest that this team wasn't constructed to repeat in 2009 and that he wanted to build a team capable of winning and going deep into the playoffs in 2010/2011/2012. The fans are smart enough to know that players like Jerry Owens, Lillibridge, Corky Miller, Jack Egbert and Lance Broadway aren't really major league quality contributors...at least on winning teams.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 4, 2009 -> 04:37 PM) Brian Anderson is going to be in a movie, as will Brandon McCarthy. http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/mlb-players-...hollywood-23655 Apparently he didn't have time to play in Winter Ball because of the scheduled shooting times. Just kidding.

One thing Poreda needs to do is work a big faster and not throw so many pitches. He's like Scott Kazmir right now....the idea of our bullpen having to enter the game consistently in the 5th and 6th innings doesn't exactly build confidence. Although anything is better than being out of the game in the 3rd or 4th and having to go to Broadway then.

Flowers got credit for a caught stealing...but what happened was the runner came off the back after being safe. The throw beat him, but it was a bad tag apparently. Still, Flowers has been more successful than the major league catchers. Of course, they don't have to deal with the likes of Floyd, Contreras and Jenks not holding runners on base.

Hensley, the starter for the Diamond Jaxx, jumped all the way from the first month with Clinton (Midwest) League over their High A team all the way to a AA start tonight... Pretty unusual move so early in the year for an organization (in this case, the M's and their new GM Jack Z) to jump a guy all the way up two leagues. Wonder if they think he can help them in Seattle as early as this season? Or maybe they just wanted to see how well he could do against Birmingham? Well, it makes for an interesting storyline, I guess. So much for Hensley. Gave up his first earned runs of the season, 3-0 Barons going to the 2nd. Tyler Flowers with a two-out RBI single, Viciedo doubled (down the right field line) in Flowers and Brandon Allen, who'd walked. Beckham grounded out. Poreda supposedly throwing 98 on the Birmingham stadium gun. Actually got a strikeout with curveball.

For that, you'll have to refer to "The Girlfriend Experience," probably. New Soderbergh movie starring Sasha Grey.

QUOTE (Jimbo's Drinker @ May 4, 2009 -> 12:51 PM) The Sox have been home run or naught for 5 years(or so). We have had pretty good pitching to at least save us in some instances. Now, we are stuck with 2 young and getting better kids, one solid foundation, and 2 pitchers who have already had their 9 lives. It is amazing that this management can widdle away so much money and try to sell us on an improved product. I cannot even imagine how we will ruin next offseaon with a ton of money off the books. Besides MacDougal and Contreras, where would you have cut away from the team to be more "payroll efficient" like the $65 million 2005 World Series champions? Konerko? Thome's option vested, and we couldn't have deliberately prevented him from getting to that mark without a huge fight with the union. Of course it's silly to spend $13 million on a DH, but we also received $22 million from the Phils, so a good part of it was subsidized. There's even rumors of a "handshake" agreement between Gillick and KW that the Phillies would kick in money if the White Sox 2009 option for Thome vested. Besides jettisoning Swisher (which looks debatable now), Cabrera, Uribe, Crede and Vazquez, what could we have done realistically? Nobody was going to take Paulie's contract unless we sent them money, and probably no AL team would take Thome for $13 million. If Thome wasn't around, our best DH candidates would be Betemit and either Kroeger, Flowers or Brandon Allen.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 4, 2009 -> 12:49 PM) Nix can also play 3B as well as SS. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/Fielding/N/Jayson-Nix.shtml Jayson Truitt Nix has played all of 9 (yes NINE) games at 3B in his entire career (majors/minors). He was playing SS and 2B in our minor league system. What do you base your comment upon? Chris Getz has more experience at 3B, actually. And Betemit.

There's overly optimistic, there's realistic/pragmatic and then there's overly pessimistic. As far as 2009 goes, there has been no reason to be optimistic, other than the fact that the warm weather is ahead of us and no team in the division has run out in front like the Tigers in 06 or the Indians in 07. Arguably, this is the weakest year for the division (winner) but the most parity and overall depth, top-to-bottom, since the current version of the AL Central was formed. Think of it like the 08-09 Big 10 Conference in BB. I am very optimistic about the future, even as soon as next year, IF we can find at least one more starting pitcher. I am very pessimistic that pitcher will come from our current minor league roster of pitchers. This argument (really a war) raged on in 2006 as the hopes for the season faded and then those who felt the White Sox were still as good as 05/06 finally gave up the ghost or disappeared in that dreadful 2007 season. The difference is, at that time, the hope for the future was Wasserman, Fields, Owens, Brian Russell and Andy Gonzalez. The future, due to the reinvigorated farm system, looks a lot brighter at least. Thankfully the Tigers traded away Maybin/Jurrgens and Robertson/Willis/Sheffield/Renteria all went into the tank, or the Tigers would be the best team in the division. Now, with Magglio/Guillen/Polanco aging, they're up against the same issue the White Sox have. OTOH, with Granderson, Cabrera and Inge, they still have a nice, younger core of players to build around.

QUOTE (Jimbo's Drinker @ May 4, 2009 -> 12:36 PM) Have you seen the White Sox approach at the plate. Pull the ball and fly out, every f***in time. Just for once, can we find someone to get some solid singles!!! You've just diagnosed the main problem (right now) with Carlos Quentin, although nobody seems to have a problem with it, as long as we're winning. The only hitters who have consistently sprayed the ball all over the field have been Konerko and Getz, and AJ, when the mood strikes him, but not consistently, as he'll go through lulls where he'll roll over and pull almost everything to the right side. Dye just is very streaky, but he can hit the ball anywhere when he's going good. Alexei is really pull-happy right now. Corky Miller can't even manage to hit the ball to the right-side of the diamond to advance a runner, but he's never been asked to contribute anything with the bat in his career. I think the biggest concern has to be with Fields, Pods, Ramirez, Anderson and Lillibridge. If they're not power hitters (in the case of Alexei and BA), are they doing enough of the "small ball/fundamental" things to help the team win??? And answer has been pretty muddled or unclear so far. I also noticed that Alexei looked up at the scoreboard right away last night to see if he had been charged with an error. It's a natural tendency for many players, but it's annoying and reminds me of Cabrera from last year. He should be more concerned with hitting at least .260-.280 in order for his power and low OBP to be worth anything to the White Sox this season.

Rowand, Crede and Ray Durham are the answer to your question, that's pretty much it. Of course, Ordonez and Lee were non-drafted, so you have to give them credit for having a Latin American pipeline in the 90's. I wouldn't be comparing Getz to Ray Durham just yet.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 4, 2009 -> 12:28 PM) Pujols hit .200 in the 2006 WS. Okay, I'll ask this question. Can the argument possibly be made that we (2009 White Sox) are better or even with that 2006 Cardinals' team?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 4, 2009 -> 12:23 PM) If the White Sox win 75 games this year and win their division they have a chance to win the WS. If they win 85 games and come in third they have a zero percent chance of winning. I would take the winning the division. BTW the pct. of WC winners and not so good team winners of the WS is ALOT higher than the pct. of White Sox winners even after being awful for many years, so I'm taking the Lloyd Christmas approach "So you're saying there's a chance." As for 2005, I mentioned the ball rolling through Grafinino's legs. That was game 2. Iguchi homered next for the White Sox lead and their final runs of the night. If the ball doesn't roll through his legs, once again, a much longer shot than a WC team or the playoff team with the worst record winning the WS, the series is 1-1 And if El Duque isn't around to save the day game 3, there's a very reasonable chance the Sox would be down 2-1. Who knows what happens after that, but the odds would be against them and even if they came back the pitching rotation could be screwed up for the next round. I'm not saying that is what the Sox should shoot for year after year. I've bashed them for the first time ever this year in regards to going cheap. Their roster is far from what I had hoped it would be, far from the aggressiveness the GM always chirps about. But they aren't going to spend money so we just must try to enjoy what we have to look at, and thank our lucky stars the AL Central is pretty weak. Come October, I'd rather be the first place team in the AL central than the 3rd place team in the AL east, and that team or even the 4th place team probably is better. I'm assuming you are talking about the "awful" time from the mid 60's through the 1980's (of course, 1967, 1977 and 1983 were nice, but blips on the radar) and not the last 20 years. If you compare our records with any team in baseball from pretty much period in baseball (for a ten year period) starting from 1990 through 2008, we trail only the Yankees, Braves and, in some comparisons, the Red Sox. We've been remarkably consistent in terms of putting out decent/good to very good/great teams over that time period, with the Bevington/early Manuel years being the only "lull" period.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 4, 2009 -> 12:18 PM) Agreed, nicely put. Also... If all a fan gives a damn about is championships, and everything else is irrelevant, then that fan (for basically any team) will go through life very disappointed. Having a team make the post-season is way better than not, and making a run at a division title is way better than being in the basement all year. See Braves and Indians fans from the 1990's, Browns, KC Chiefs and Buffalo Bills fans from the 80's and 90's and Susan Lucci fans hoping for a daytime Emmy award for her. We all know the answer, but do A's and Twins' fans feel more of a sense of accomplishment because their teams consistently competed in the playoffs more often than not? Of course, Yankees/Cubs/Red Sox fans are in a different category, but I think we have almost reached the point where we could compare our franchise to the Cardinals, although they own the city of St. Louis in terms of fan support. I'm thinking more in terms of attendance and payroll, although I can't imagine we will come close to their attendance numbers this year.